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Sciences alumna creates scholarship with IRA required minimum distribution

Although she lives in New York, one alumna is choosing to remember the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with her planned giving.

Marsha Kramer graduated from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1977 with a master's degree in computer science. Kramer explained she started her planned giving to the University because she feels she was fortunate enough to have inexpensive tuition, and she was wondering what impact she could make with her charitable giving.

"Although it's been a long time since I attended the University, I wanted to do something meaningful with my money," she said. "I wanted to give back to the students."

According to Kramer, she is hoping that current UL Lafayette students can look back on their days as a student and give back to the University like she did.

"When they're busy working in a few years, I want them to see how my gift benefitted them," she said. "I want them to realize that it's something they got from alumni, and they have the chance to give back like I did."

Kramer chose to use her Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from her Individual Retirement Account (IRA) to create the Marsha J. Kramer Endowed Superior Graduate Student Scholarship in Computer Science and the Marsha J. Kramer Endowed Scholarship in Computer Science. Beginning in their 70s, donors typically have to take a part of distribution from their IRA every year (click here to learn more).

"I thought this was a great idea when I heard about it, and I'm about halfway there," Kramer said of her endowments.

As the newest Louisiana Board of Regents matching opportunity, Endowed Superior Graduate student scholarships are established to assist academic departments and units to recruit, retain and graduate excellent graduate and first professional degree candidates as well as engage post-doctoral fellows. Through this competitive program, the Board of Regents provides a match for each private gift, creating an endowment to support graduate students. As UL Lafayette increases support for graduate students, this enables the University to make larger strides in research and development.

Kramer is passionate about supporting graduate studies and credits her graduate degree for a fulfilling career. After graduating from USL, she got a job at Loyola University teaching math and computer programming. According to Kramer, she would not have gotten her teaching job without the degree she got at USL.

"I don't remember how long I taught at Loyola, but I loved it," Kramer said. "I would have paid them to let me continue working there."